Euphoria: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (The Carnal Court Book 2) Read online

  I remember enough of what happened to put together the pieces. The fae male that came after Kari and seeing his decision to kill rather than capture. There wasn’t any question in my mind about what to do, and no time. If I were in that situation this second, I would make the same choice. Kari’s life is worth more than mine. Always.

  And after, I don’t remember much. Magic and pleasure and light and saying yes. I know that’s what saved me, and why I’m lying here in a daze of pain. Sitting upright, I’m stiff and my limbs feel awkward. I must have been unconscious for at least a couple of days. Maybe more. Especially since no one is present. I have no doubt that they’re checking in, but I prefer that. There’s no need for an audience and I don’t want anyone to see me struggle.

  It takes me longer than I would ever admit to get myself up and across the room. To pour a drink of water and wash myself with the liquid in the pitcher. It’s the smallest thing I can think of, and feeling clean feels good, even if I can’t trust my body enough to go all the way to the bathing chamber. During the war I was lucky—never had an injury this bad. But being on my feet is reassuring. Energizing.

  I hear her as soon as she enters the room, but I say nothing. The sound of her steps tells me she’s trying to be quiet. Her hands stroke the small of my back before slowly stretching around so that she’s embracing me. Kari’s fingers stretch across my stomach, feeling as much of me as she can with her small hands. Her forehead presses into my spine, holding me tight. Kari is easy to read anyway, but her emotions are plain in the way she’s holding me. More than she’s able to say out loud.

  More than I’m able to say too, though we both feel it. I place one of my hands over hers.

  I don’t know if it’s the way she’s touching me, or the fact that I can feel that she’s very, very, naked behind me, but my body responds. I’m naked too, and the last thing I remember before waking up—aside from a few blurry images—is Kari riding me. Blinding light and pleasure that I’ve never experienced in my life until now.

  “Does it hurt?” She asks.

  “Yes.” There’s no point in lying. “But I can handle it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Her voice breaks.

  She feels guilty, and she absolutely shouldn’t. I turn in her arms so I can hold against me and show her how aroused I am by her presence.

  The tempo of her heart increases and the little gasp she makes as I press us together is precious. I like the way her cheeks tinge the light pink when she blushes, and the way she bites her lip. Her hair is wet, and the scent of her arousal is already strong. Floral and sweet. I can guess why, and I laugh internally. Someone had a busy morning. Too bad I missed it. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t attack me.”

  “But it was because of me.”

  I stroke my hand down the side of her face before weaving my fingers into her hair and guiding her gaze to mine. I don’t want her to look away. “It is a privilege to protect you, Kari, and I would do it again. Will do it again. I will do it as many times as it takes, because losing you…”

  I watch the way her eyes brighten with tears as I speak, and I’m glad that I was never with anyone else. I can’t imagine it. Don’t ever want to imagine it. “Losing you is unthinkable to me.”

  She closes her eyes, and tears spill over. She tucks her head against my chest to hide them, and we stand frozen in this moment. I can feel her anxiety, how much she was scared for my life, and how it would have devastated her if I hadn’t been as lucky. But she could live through it. I’m not sure I could. Not after everything.

  But I also sense more. These tears are not solely for me. Nor should they be. Kari has been through more than most humans experience in a lifetime. And the changes are by no means small.

  For a few minutes, we simply breathe together. It helps, staying still. Doesn’t hurt nearly as much. And the steadiness brings ease back to her breath. “I didn’t leave you alone,” she says. “Last night was the first time.”

  I can’t help but smile. “Do you think I’m going to be upset with you because you weren’t glued to my side while I was unconscious?” I tip her face up so I can see her eyes again. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “You all didn’t leave me alone for a second.”

  I laugh, even though it makes my body ache. “There are also five of us. And as much as I like and respect the other males in this house, I’m perfectly fine not being cuddled by them.”

  She opens her mouth like she’s going to protest, and I silence whatever she would have said with a kiss. I’ve only kissed her once, when she asked me to. And only touched her when one or the other of us needed healing. This is just for me.

  Her mouth is soft under mine, body going pliant and relaxed as I kiss her. Completely the opposite of mine. She just makes me harder. “Are you sure?” she asks, pulling away.

  “After the way you saved my life, I think it’s a little late to ask that.”

  Kari blushes. “That was different. We didn’t have a choice. I want everything else to be…” she hesitates. Her fingers move a little on my back, just barely squeezing and letting go, and she takes a deep breath. “You’ve really never been touched?”

  “Only once,” I say. “Only by you.”

  “Can I?”

  “Touch me?” I grin. “More than you already are?”

  She nods, drawing her hands up to my shoulders, and I shudder. A faint stirring of magic moves under my skin, at once strange and familiar. “Yes.” I don’t have the words to tell her how much I want her to touch me. Everywhere. My cock is trapped between us, hard as a rock, and there’s no denying how aware of it we are.

  “Will this help heal you?” Her fingers are brushing across my chest and the sound that comes from me is feral. “It might, but I could give a damn. I just want to feel you.”

  There’s a fiery spark in her eye as she smiles, leans in, and grazes her teeth across my nipple. My breath goes short, and I find myself watching her, unable to look away. Reaching between us, she touches me. Barely. Chills roll across my skin and down my spine and I groan as she wraps her hand around me, barely able to close her fingers.

  I know that nobody believed me when I said I was celibate—that they thought I used pleasure in private to stoke secret magic and hid it from the world. I let them think it, but I never did. There wasn’t any part of me that wanted the magic of the Carnal Court until Kari. And still I could live without the magic as long as I am near her. But now…I want everything. She makes me want everything.

  Kari looks up at me as she strokes my cock slowly, and I feel good. So delicious that it makes my knees go weak, and I’m suddenly barely upright. I grip the stand behind me to keep from falling.

  But Kari doesn’t keep herself upright. She sinks gracefully to her knees and I curse when I see her tongue. Feel it.

  I’m no stranger to sex. I’ve seen the rituals and the orgies and I’ve heard the talk of what a woman’s mouth can do to a cock.

  They were all fucking liars.

  Kari’s lips slip over me, and all I see is white. Pleasure and magic rush through me together, seeking out the wound in my side, knitting it together and making it more whole. Not complete, but better, and then the magic spreads to the rest of me, bringing my nerves to attention and infuses them with bright, silvery sensation. I’ve never felt my own magic like this—powerful and full. It’s only ever been a whisper. This is a flood.

  She sinks down onto me, and I can’t even focus on what she’s doing because all I can do is feel. Feel and grind my teeth together to keep from exploding.

  Deeper and deeper she takes me and I’m overwhelmed by heat and wet and the fact this is Kari. She’s choosing me, to give me pleasure. She still doesn’t understand what that means here, how sacred and precious and—

  Oh Goddess, what is she doing with her tongue? Everything feels like it’s building, leading somewhere. I’ve seen this happen, now I know what it feels like, and it can’t happen. “Wait,” I say, pulling her away
from my cock, “Wait, please.”

  She freezes.

  “We can’t.”

  Kari hesitates. “Are you all right?”

  I scrub a hand across my face. “That was…incandescent. But I was about to finish.”

  She grins, reaching for me. “That's kind of the point.”

  “I know,” I say, still having trouble forming words with this much pleasure ringing through my body. “But in your mouth.”

  Kari licks me, slowly. “I don’t mind, Verys.”

  It’s my turn to go still. “You would want that? Truly?”

  She looks confused. “Do fae males not usually like that? Human ones do. Come to think of it, none of you have let me finish you like that.” And then I realize. She doesn’t know. She has no reason to, and she sees it on my face. “I missed something, didn’t I?”

  I nod, and pull her off the floor and into my arms. The wound barely gives a twinge. “And it’s not a conversation we can have alone.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ________

  KARI

  “Verys, put me down,” I say, pushing on his chest. “You’re not supposed to be walking, let alone carrying me, and I am naked.”

  He laughs softly, and I could learn to love that sound. It’s so rare. “Every male in this house has seen you naked, and every one—including me now—has been inside you.” His lips are at my ear, words making me blush hot. “Your scent tells me of your pleasure this morning, as does the fact that you’re naked. You’re going to have to get used to that. Being naked isn’t uncommon in the Carnal Court.”

  We step out into the common room, and everyone’s eyes flash to us. Immediately, the atmosphere changes. The fact that Verys is awake, holding me, and still fully erect with the remnants of my lips on his cock is a lot to process in a second.

  Brae grins. “I see you’re feeling better.”

  “Amazing what magic will do,” Verys says as he sits on the couch with me in his lap, his cock pressing insistently and distractingly against my ass.

  I clear my throat. “Was this really necessary?”

  “Yes,” he says. He looks at the rest of the men. “Kari gave me the gift of pleasure with her mouth, but I stopped her before—” he cuts himself off and starts again. “She doesn’t know what she’s offering, or what that would mean.”

  The fae in the room straighten slightly, and everyone looks mildly uncomfortable. Kent looks as confused as I am. I gesture to the room. “Can someone please tell me what is happening so I don’t start to thinking this is worse than it is? What is so bad about a blow job?”

  Urien laughs and clears his throat. “You already know that females are the rarer sex. Relationships like this one,” he opens his hands and gestures to the six of us, “are not uncommon, though usually the group has fewer members.” There’s a flicker of a smile. “We are mated, but not bound. There is a difference.”

  “Not unlike the way your cultures have unique marriage traditions, each of the courts have a mating ritual—though probably a better term would be ‘sealing.’ An act that binds two people who are mates together. Very unlike your mating traditions, it is not reversible.” Brae says.

  “Right,” Aeric glances over at him. “So for obvious reasons, this is rare. Having a mate at all is considered a blessing. And still fewer seal that bond. Some choose to exist in the state we currently occupy. Happy and committed, but not sealed.”

  “Why?” I ask, nerves bubbling up in my gut. “What does sealing do?”

  “It binds you together in every way,” Brae says, and I can feel Verys wrapping his arms around me slowly. Somehow he knows I need an anchor while I listen to Brae’s words. “You can sense the other’s feelings and magic. I’m told from those who are mated that there is no greater ecstasy, but if…something happens, then there is no greater pain.”

  I think about that for a second. They alluded to this before when we spoke about being mates. “I would be able to sense you. Like read your minds?”

  “No,” Aeric says. “None of us have experienced it first hand, but think of it as more emotional impressions. Echoes of what we would feel. Both the good and the bad.”

  I nod, trying to imagine what it would be like to have someone else’s emotions in my head. Or wherever I would…feel them. “And why do fae choose not to seal that bond?”

  Standing, Urien paces behind the couches, around the outer circle of the common area. “Some cannot bear to think of accepting something so permanent. Some do not want to risk the bond breaking. Like during the war.”

  Something clicks in my mind. “And in the Carnal Court that ritual is swallowing?” I'm trying to keep a straight face, because that’s hilarious, but no one else seems to find it funny. Though I see a twitch of Kent’s mouth out of the corner of my eye.

  Verys presses his lips to my neck, and runs his fingers up and down my arms, making me aware of how close our bodies are again. “Yes. Though I have not partaken, here nothing is considered a greater gift than gifting selfless pleasure to someone. The magic that is created is very powerful. Consuming that magic, it’s what seals the bond for mates. For others, it is simply pleasure.”

  “In all the courts, the sealing is in some way an act of selflessness and trust. That takes different forms,” Urien adds.

  The reverent way they speak about it makes me feel bad for wanting to laugh, and the clear longing in their tone makes my chest ache. But it’s still a lot to take in. “And for us? How does that work?”

  Brae shrugs. “Allwyn’s magic always manages to surprise me and sometimes doesn’t follow the rules that we expect it to. Though each of us would be bonded with you, I would guess that the magic becomes a net, and everyone would feel the echoes. The few instances I’ve seen of multiple bonded mates have been very in sync.”

  When Verys speaks, I jump. I was lost in imagining what that would be like. “If I had allowed you to do that, you would have bound yourself to me without your knowledge. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  I turn, staring at him for a moment before pressing my mouth to his. It’s good to understand. I was worried that he didn’t want that, that it was something deeper that I had missed, and not his effort to protect me and my option to choose him.

  And then Aeric speaks quietly. “Kari. It needs to be said that if you offered that, I would accept you in the same breath. But if that’s not what you want, I am happy just living a life with you.”

  Quiet words of agreement are spoken from every male in the room, and the air goes still. But the reality of that sinks in. The sealing is unbreakable. Which means forever. Forever. They want me forever.

  “You would be happy like that?” I don’t address it to anyone in particular.

  Aeric snorts. “Why would I want anyone else?”

  “The goddess places things the way they need to be,” Urien says. “I never envisioned myself sharing, and I never imagined being mated. Now I can’t imagine anything else.”

  I look at Kent, and another thought hits me. “Does sealing the bond stop me from having other partners?”

  “No,” Brae says immediately and firmly.

  The pain in Kent’s eyes is obvious, and the tension in the way he’s keeping himself still as a statue. “I’ve said it before, Kari. Do not let me hold you back from something you want. I’m human. There’s nothing I can do about that.” He’s on his feet and out the door into the garden before I can say anything else, and there’s a flash of pain in my chest.

  “Is there any way,” I ask. “Anything that could bind Kent to me in the same way?”

  Even without the ritual I can feel something settling and spreading between us. A connection that will never need words. “I do not know,” Brae says, “But if this is the path we choose, I will do what I can to find a way.”

  I glance around at the rest of them, and find no opposition to that idea. They even nod. Good. “I’ll be back.”

  Following Kent out to the garden, he’s already disappeared. It
takes me a few minutes of looking to find him in one of the little clearings, staring up at the scarlet sky. “Kent.”

  “It should bother me,” he says, “sharing you. Or at least it feels like it should. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t even feel like sharing. More like…being a part of something bigger.” He sighs, “I like that feeling, and I don’t want to lose you. But I can’t offer you what they can.”

  He turns, and the devastation on his face steals my breath. He steps closer to me, reaching out and barely brushing my hip. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time. And I want everything for you. I want you to be happy and loved and mated. And if I even get to be a small part of that, it’s better than nothing at all. But please,” he begs. “Know that if I could offer it to you, I would do it in a second.”

  I collapse the distance between us and let him kiss me. Kent’s lips feel like a familiar homecoming, and I think they’ll always feel like that. Like warmth and safety and comfort. Years of flirtation and longing come to life.

  “You’re going to be more than just a small part of it,” I say. “Remember what you said to me? If you thought that I’d leave you after all this, I don’t know what else I can do to convince you. The same goes for you. And they said they would try to find a way.”

  He quirks an eyebrow up. “Even Aeric?”

  “Even him.”

  Kent kisses me again, this time more urgent, like he’s relieved and full of joy and just wants to be close to me. I gasp under his lips. “Just remember that you being human doesn’t ever make you less. Not to me. I’m human too.”

  “I know.” He smooths his palms down my back and presses his forehead to mine. “I like it when you walk around naked. Reminds me of my fantasies when I would come into your shop.”

  “You fantasized about me?”

  “Every. Goddamn. Day.”

  A giggle escapes me, and I press onto my toes to kiss him quickly. “Let’s go back. This conversation isn’t over yet.”